National attention as Sanders-Galvez faces jury

Andy Hoffman

Sunday

Oct 22, 2017 at 12:01 AM

The first-degree murder trial in the March 2016 killing of a gender-fluid Burlington teen, set to begin this week, has grabbed interest across the country.

On a cold, rainy March evening almost two years ago, the joyous life of a popular Burlington High School student ended when his bullet-riddled body was found dumped in alley behind a residence on South Hill.

While local, state and federal law enforcement agencies have spent hundreds of hours investigating the 2016 murder of Kedarie Johnson, the actual motive for the gender-fluid youth's killing has not been revealed publicly.

The reason a motive has not been released could be because investigators and prosecutors don't want the reason to be known before evidence is presented at the trial this week of Jorge "Lumni" Sanders-Galvez, 23, of one of two men accused of killing Johnson.

Or there may be another reasons:

• Investigators are not certain of the specific reason someone decided to slay the vibrant and popular student whose persona made him stand out among teachers, students and administrators alike at Burlington High School.

• Could his death be the result of someone's hatred of his open lifestyle — he regularly dressed as a girl and often referred to himself as Kandicee, his female persona?

• Could have it been the result of a lover's quarrel?

• Or, could it have been one of many rumors that have percolated in the Burlington community since his murder.

It's possible the exact reason for Johnson's murder may never be known, even after a jury hears two weeks of evidence at Sanders-Galvez's trial in South Lee County District Court in Keokuk.

Juries are not required to determine a motive in deciding a person's guilt or innocence. They only have to unanimously decide if the evidence presented by prosecutors proves beyond a reasonable doubt the accused is responsible for crime.

If Sanders-Galvez is convicted of first-degree murder in state court (which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole), he still faces the possibility of federal charges. If convicted of a hate crime in federal court, he could face the death penalty.

In August, a federal grand jury was convened in U.S. District Court in Davenport to determine if federal indictments should be handed up against Sanders-Galvez and a co-defendant, Jaron "Wikked West" Purham, 25. Purham remains in custody in Missouri on unrelated charges. It is not known when he will be returned to Iowa to face murder charges here.

While a decision has not been made as to whether federal indictments will be filed, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently dispatched Christopher Perras, one of his top civil rights attorneys, from Washington, D.C., to assist local and state prosecutors at Sanders-Galvez's trial this week.

Perras will join Des Moines County Attorney Amy Beavers and Laura Roan, an assistant Iowa attorney general, in prosecuting Sanders-Galvez. Curtis Dial and Ron Ellerhoff, two private attorneys in southeastern Iowa, were appointed by the court to represent Sanders-Galvez after the state public defender's office asked to be removed, citing numerous conflict of interests.

One of the questions that will need to be answered before federal indictments could be filed is whether Johnson's murder is a hate crime.

“My son was gay, but everybody knew that,” he said. “Everybody loved him.”

Perkins said it was hard to imagine anyone wanting to hurt him, no matter how intolerant their views.

Many people have often referred to Johnson as transgender, but those who knew him said that was not the case. They said an accurate description of Johnson is that he was "gender-fluid."

According to numerous sources, the definition of a gender-fluid person is one whose gender identity is best described as a dynamic mix of boy and girl. A person who is gender-fluid may always feel like a mix of the two traditional genders, but may feel more boy some days, and more girl other days.

In Johnson's case, that description appears to be accurate.

He had two personas: Kedarie, the male, and Kandicee, the female. He maintained two separate Facebook pages, one for each name.

At the time of his death, Johnson was a junior at BHS. Friends and teachers remember him as a person who would were "dreadlocks, leggings and occasionally makeup to school and other times he would dress as a boy." Many described him as an ornery high schooler with a good heart, huge personality and a major sense of fashion.

Because of his dual male/female persona, many believe Johnson's murder is a hate crime. Local and state investigators have not shared that view, at least based on Iowa law.

“As defined by Iowa Code’s definition of a hate crime, we don’t think it applies to Kedarie’s death,” said Lt. Jeff Klein, who was commander of Burlington’s criminal investigation division at the time of Johnson's death.

“At this point," Klein said then, "we have no information that leads us to believe Kedarie was targeted by his killer or killers because of his gender or sexual orientation. Every murder has a component of hate. Any murder is hateful in and of itself.”

Under Iowa law, a hate crime is committed “because of the person’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, age or disability, or the person’s association with a person of a certain race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, age or disability.”

While Johnson's death may not be considered a hate crime in Iowa, the definition of a hate crime at the federal level has different elements.

As defined in federal law, a hate crime is one that is committed with “evidence of prejudice based on race, gender or gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity,” according to the Hate Crime Statistics Act. The crime can be “murder, non-negligent manslaughter; forcible rape; aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation; arson; and destruction, damage or vandalism of property.”

For an act to be prosecuted as a hate crime, evidence of bias, prejudice or hatred as motivation for the crime has to be evident, according to federal law.

Authorities also said a conviction for a hate crime in federal court could carry the death penalty if a firearm was used to kill Johnson.

Regardless of the outcome of this week's trial, Sanders-Galvez's future will remain in limbo as he waits for the U.S. Department of Justice to make a determination on whether federal charges should be filed against him and Purham.

Sanders-Galvez remains in the Des Moines County jail in lieu of a $2 million cash-only bond.

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